On Monday, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to offer his strongest endorsement yet for wearing masks in public, calling it a “Patriotic” action during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Referring to COVID-19 as the “Invisible China Virus,” he featured a black and white photo of him wearing a face mask.
The president tweeted, “Many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance. There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!”
Trump’s tweet appears to endorse the use of facemasks in public after months of largely resisting wearing one and mixed messages on whether they can help prevent COVID-19 transmission.
Almost all politicians, business leaders, and even Trump administration have now embraced masks after multiple states started experiencing a record-breaking surge in new COVID-19 cases.
Last week, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said the outbreak could get under control in a couple of months if every American starts wearing a mask. However, Trump disagreed with Dr. Redfield’s mask mandate.
The president told Fox News, “I don’t agree with the statement that if everybody wear a mask everything disappears. All of sudden everybody’s got to wear a mask, and as you know masks cause problems, too. With that being said, I’m a believer in masks. I think masks are good.”
Trump has largely resisted wearing a mask in public. He wore a mask only twice since the pandemic began, and only once in a full view of the press. He openly wore a facemask for the first time this month during a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Before visiting the hospital, Trump told reporters, “I’ve never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place.”
Even the key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, advised against using masks in the early stages of the pandemic.
At the time, they said there was little evidence to support the claim that masks could help slow the spread of the virus. However, new data about asymptomatic transmission prompted the health officials to mandate masks.
More than 3.9 million Americans have been affected by the novel coronavirus, killing over 143,000 so far. Globally, the virus has sickened more than 14 million people and killed over 613,000 so far. Trump’s tweet over the use of masks also came after he announced that he would resume daily coronavirus briefings at the White House, with the next briefing to be expected Tuesday around 5 pm ET.
